The Israeli Settlements
(Updated September 2010)
Israel sought peace with its Arab neighbors for two decades
before the first Jewish community was established in the West
Bank and yet no Arab leader was willing to end the conflict.
Jews should have a right to live anywhere. If someone
said that Jews would not be permitted to live in your hometown, you
would say that was anti-Semitism,
discrimination and bigotry, yet the Palestinians are allowed to go on
TV day after day and say that Jews have no right to live in the West
Bank. That is overt anti-Semitism, discrimination and bigotry.
Jews have been living in Judea and Samaria,
the area commonly called the West
Bank, for centuries, far
longer than Palestinians have lived in the area. The only
time Jews have been prohibited from living in the territories
in recent decades was during Jordan's rule from 1948 to 1967.
The right of Jews to live in the West
Bank is clear. The issue of whether they should live there is
entirely separate. Israelis debate this among themselves.
The question of the future status of settlements is the subject of final status negotiations
with the Palestinians. The fact that Israel agreed to
discuss the matter illustrates a willingness to compromise
on this issue.
Neither the Declaration
of Principles of September 13, 1993, nor the Interim
Agreement contain any provisions prohibiting or restricting
the establishment or expansion of Jewish communities in the West Bank or Gaza
Strip.
Some people argue that
settlements are an "obstacle to peace." Consider
these facts:
From 1948 to 1967, Jordan occupied the West
Bank. Israel
did not control an inch of the territory and no Jews lived
there and yet no Arab state would even negotiate with Israel.
Israel did not begin to build large numbers
of settlements until after 1977. That is also when Egypt
negotiated peace. Israel froze settlement building
afterward in the hope that other Arab states would follow
Egypt's example. None did.
Israel built more settlements in the 1980s and 1990s;
nevertheless, King Hussein made peace with Israel, and
settlements were not an issue.
In the Oslo agreements, Israel did not agree to dismantle
any settlements or freeze construction and yet the Palestinians
signed them.
In negotiations with Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat in 2000, Prime Minister Barak offered to dismantle settlements in the West
Bank, but Arafat refused to make peace.
At the end of negotiations, Israel wants
to incorporate as many settlements as possible within its
borders while the Palestinians want to expel all Jews from
the territory they control.
An estimated 80 percent of the settlers live in what
are in effect suburbs of major Israeli cities such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Virtually the entire Jewish population believes Israel must retain these
areas to ensure its security, and that they could be brought within
Israel's borders with minor
modifications of the 1967
border.
Of the 122 officially recognized West Bank settlements,
with an estimated population of 303,900 in 2010,
more than 60 percent of the Jews live in
just five settlement blocs (Ma’ale Adumim, Modiin Ilit, Ariel, Gush Etzion, Givat Ze’ev)
near the 1967 border. The Arab city of Nablus alone is larger than those six Jewish cities
put together. It is inconceivable that Israel
would evacuate large cities such as Ma’ale
Adumim,
with a population of more than 35,000, even
after a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Even Yasser
Arafat grudgingly accepted at Camp
David the idea that the large settelement
blocs would be part of Israel.
Strategic concerns have led both Labor and Likud governments
to establish settlements. The objective is to secure a Jewish
majority in key strategic regions of the West
Bank, such
as the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor, the scene of heavy fighting
in several Arab-Israeli
wars.
Settlements do not violate the Fourth
Geneva Convention, which prohibits the forcible transfer of people
of one state to the territory of another state that it has occupied
as a result of a war. The intention was to ensure that local populations
who came under occupation would not be forced to move. Jews are not
being forced to go to the West Bank and Gaza Strip; on the contrary,
they are voluntarily moving back to places where they, or their ancestors,
once lived before being expelled by others. In addition, those territories
never legally belonged to either Jordan or Egypt, and certainly not
to the Palestinians, who were never the sovereign authority in any part
of the land.
After several years
of bloodshed, terror and stalled peace
talks with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon decided that Israel should
act unilaterally to improve its security
situation and reduce bloodshed by
completely withdrawing Israeli troops
and settlers in the Gaza
Strip. This disengagement
plan involved the dismantling
of all settlements in
the area, as well as four settlements in
northen Samaria.
Between August 16 and August 30, 2005, Israel
safely evacuated more than 8,500 Israeli
settlers and, on September 11, 2005, Israeli
soldiers left Gaza, ending Israel's 38-year
presence in the area.
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